


Mission Incomplete

by gammadolphin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, but only in flashbacks, it has a happy ending though i swear, slight AU, the M rating is for dark themes not for sexytimes fyi, this may not be the angstiest thing i've ever written but it's certainly in the running, you just have to trudge through a crapload of feels to get there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gammadolphin/pseuds/gammadolphin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He does not understand. He completed his mission. The captain is dead. So why does it feel as though he has done something terrible, as though he has knocked the world off its axis? Why is the screaming in his head louder than ever?</em><br/>-<br/>AU where Bucky thinks he completes his mission on the riverbank and Hydra "rewards" him by giving his memories back. All of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission Incomplete

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a prompt over on the avengerkink lj. The link to the complete prompt is at the end. I made myself extremely sad writing this, but I really like the way it turned out and I hope you do too.

The Soldier trudges out of the water step by painful step, his body aching and his heavy burden in tow. He drops the target on the riverbank, and the man chokes out a weak breath, water bubbling from his lips.

_Mission incomplete_

The Soldier kneels beside the mission, studying him. The face is familiar to him. He knows it, he just doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why a few pleading words from the target were enough to still the Soldier’s hand. Targets have pleaded with the Soldier before. None of them received any mercy. So why is the captain still breathing?

_Mission incomplete_

The words pound painfully through the Soldier’s brain. He does not leave his missions incomplete. Failed missions mean the disappointment of his masters. He cannot disappoint his masters.

He just wishes that he understood why this mission is so hard, why seeing the blond-haired captain in his antiquated stars and stripes is tearing at his insides in ways that he has never experienced. He wishes he knew why all of his instincts are screaming at him, telling him to tend to the captain’s wounds, to wipe away his blood and get him to safety.

_Mission incomplete_

The chaos in the Soldier’s head is so strong that he clutches at his own hair, fighting to find some semblance of control, of clarity. This should not be hard. The captain is his mission, and at the moment he is one of the easiest targets the Soldier has ever encountered. So why can’t the Soldier make himself move?

_Mission incomplete_

The captain’s eyes begin to flutter open. He looks up at the Soldier, and his expression fills with equal parts pain and hope.

“Buck-”

_MISSION INCOMPLETE_

With a wild cry, the Soldier reaches out and twists the captain’s head to the side, snapping his neck with a dull crunch that seems louder than a gunshot. The captain falls still, and the Soldier staggers back. His ears are full of a muted roaring, and his stomach roils. He retches into the weeds, and only foul yellow bile comes up.

He does not understand. He completed his mission. The captain is dead. So why does it feel as though he has done something terrible, as though he has knocked the world off its axis? Why is the screaming in his head louder than ever?

The Soldier lurches to his feet, desperate to get away from the captain’s body. He starts running, although he knows there is no running from what he’s done.

For the first time that he is aware of, the Soldier longs for the Chair. It hurts, yes, but it wipes him clean, leaves him blank and empty. The Soldier is desperate to be empty again.

*****

Even in the utter chaos that has overtaken the city, it does not take the Soldier long to return to his handlers. The rendezvous points and contingency plans are burned into his brain, and his handlers are waiting for him in the third place he tries. There are three of them, men that he does not remember. They look nervous, worried.

“Mission report,” one of them demands.

“Mission complete,” the Soldier intones, the words burning his throat on the way out.

The handlers exchange glances. The Soldier knows that his mission reports are supposed to be longer, more detailed. But the Soldier thinks that he will start screaming if he tries to say more, so he stays silent.

The men do not push. They just strap him to his seat in the back of their armored van and drive him to the renovated bank vault in which he is stored between missions. The Soldier sinks gratefully into the Chair when he is led to it, and the handlers look surprised. They turn to each other and start talking, but the Soldier does not bother to listen to their conversation. It does not matter. The new people that enter the vault and join in the conversation do not matter. Nothing matters.

The Soldier wishes they would just turn the Chair on already. His head is a warzone of screams and tumultuous agony, and he just wants it to _stop_.

The conversation drags on too long for the Soldier’s liking, but eventually one of the people breaks away from the cluster and approaches him. Her face is familiar, but not in the warm, bone-deep way the captain was familiar. He knows that she must work with him regularly. She stoops slightly to study him, and her face is cold.

“Well,” she says at last. “Here we are.”

She does not seem to want a response, and the Soldier does not give one. He wishes they would just wipe him. He just wants the peace of feeling nothing.

“You have done much for us,” the woman continues. “Given us much. But I’m afraid that you’ve rather outlived your usefulness. So now it is time for us to give you something.”

She looks at the technician who is standing at the Chair’s controls.

“Restore him,” she orders. “Restore everything.”

The technician looks nervous and uncomfortable.

“I’m not really sure about-”

“Do it!” the woman barks.

The technician pushes the buttons that activate the Chair’s restraints. The woman leans over the Soldier as he is clamped in place.

“You failed us,” she hisses, her eyes filled with furious disgust but her expression composed. “You deserve this torment. I regret that I was not there to witness you being broken the first time, but I will relish watching it now.”

The Soldier does not know what she is talking about. He is still having trouble hearing past the noise in his head, having trouble thinking about anything but the feeling of the captain’s neck snapping beneath his hands.

He is grateful when the plates descend over his face, grateful even as their fiery pain tears through him, because he knows that the blankness is coming, knows that he will soon be able to forget the captain and the inexplicable anguish of killing him.

But the blankness does not come. Instead of emptying, his head is filling up. Images and thoughts start to spill into his brain in an immense flood, too fast for him to catch more than fleeting glimpses before new ones takes their places. He sees a woman’s face smiling at him, sees two little girls chasing each other around an old-fashioned kitchen, sees a man bent over a workshop table.

The Soldier does not understand what he is seeing, what is being done to him. He just knows that it hurts, that each image has jagged edges that tear at his mind, ripping holes in him. But then another image hits, and this one stands out, grows into something more.

_“What’cha readin’ there, brain boy?” asked a cruel voice._

_Bucky flinched and looked up to see Drew Simon standing over him. He didn’t answer, knowing it wouldn’t matter one way or the other._

_“I asked what you were reading, dipshit,” Drew snarled._

_He yanked the book out of Bucky’s hand. Bucky looked at the ground, face burning and stomach clenching. He hated Drew Simon; hated him more than he had hated anyone else in his seven years of life. Drew hated that Bucky was smarter than him and knew how to read already, so he had made it his personal mission to make every recess a living hell for Bucky, who didn’t know how to stop it._

_Since Drew still didn’t know how to read, he had no way of knowing what book he had just taken from Bucky. He stared at the cover in frustration for a moment, before throwing it in the dirt. Bucky bit his lip but said nothing._

_“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Drew sneered, his face twisted and ugly with jealous spite. “I bet you won’t think that after a couple of good knocks to the head.”_

_He raised his fist and Bucky flinched again, hating himself for it. Drew had never actually hit him yet, but it could only be a matter of time._

_Apparently that time had run out._

_Bucky let out a yelp of pain, reeling backward as Drew’s fist connected with his face. He clenched his own fists in anger, but Drew just laughed._

_“What’re you gonna do, Barnes? Fight me? You’re tiny. You’ll be out cold before you can land a hit.”_

_Bucky almost burst into tears of frustration. Drew was right. He was small for his age, always had been. It was why he hadn’t done anything about Drew before now._

_“Hey!” a new voice piped up from behind the bully._

_Another boy, one even smaller than Bucky, shoved his way between them. He stood in front of Bucky and glowered up at Drew, tiny fists raised and expression fierce._

_“Leave him alone,” the boy demanded._

_Drew and Bucky both stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck. Then Drew burst out laughing._

_“Seriously, Barnes?” he said, jeering at Bucky over the other kid’s head. “I didn’t think God made ‘em runtier than you, but I guess I was wrong. You two should make a club. World’s tiniest loser-”_

_He broke off with a high-pitched squeal of pain as the kid punched him right in the nuts. Didn’t even bother using his foot, just hauled back and let his fist fly. Bucky could do nothing but stare as Drew sank slowly to his knees, hands cupping his wounded pride._

_“We may wanna go somewhere else,” the kid said calmly, turning his back on the whimpering Drew to look at Bucky. “They’re usually not too happy when they recover from that.”_

_He set off across the schoolyard and Bucky followed, still stunned._

_“You’ve done that to other people?” he demanded once he had regained the miracle of speech._

_The kid shrugged._

_“Only when I had to,” he said. “The problem is that it usually only works once. They wise up to you after that, make sure they get the first hit in.”_

_“You shouldn’t have done that,” Bucky said, his brain finally catching up to what had happened. “Drew holds grudges. He’s gonna beat you to a pulp next time he sees you.”_

_“I’m used to it,” the kid said, shrugging his frail shoulders again. “I couldn’t just do nothing when he was hitting you like that. You’ve gotta learn to stand up to people.”_

_“Right,” Bucky said gloomily, pretty sure that would never be happening._

_“Here.” The kid thrust something into Bucky’s hands. It was the book that Drew had thrown to the ground. Bucky hadn’t even seen the boy pick it up._

_“Thanks,” he said, surprised and grateful._

_“No problem. I like Sherlock Holmes too.”_

_“You can read too?”_

_“Yeah. My ma taught me. I’ve been sick these past few months, see, and she said that if I couldn’t go to school yet, I should at least learn something at home.”_

_Looking at the kid, Bucky wasn’t surprised that he had been sick. He was glad not to be the only one his age who could read though._

_“Wait, does that mean you’re starting school now?” he asked, suddenly hopeful._

_The kid nodded, and Bucky grinned. His future brightened in his mind’s eye. He reached out and shook the boy’s hand._

_“Then welcome to the class,” he said. “I’m Bucky Barnes.”_

_“Steve Rogers.”_

The Soldier screams, and whether it is from the memory or the electric current, he does not know. The images are still coming relentlessly, overloading his brain with a lifetime of memories that he now knows are his own. He sees flashes of a life in Brooklyn, growing up with Steve Rogers, the kid with a spirit too big for his body. He sees blanket forts and games of chess, a rollercoaster and an ancient motorcycle. He sees Steve’s frustration as Bucky caught up in size to the rest of the boys their age while Steve did not. He feels, rather than sees Bucky’s constant worry as the bullies got bigger too and Steve remained undeterred. He sees afternoons spent patching up Steve’s scrapes, sees terrifying nights spent watching Steve gasp for each breath and praying that it would not be his last. He sees the moment Bucky realized exactly what Steve Rogers meant to him.

_It was the kind of place that didn’t care how old you were, as long as you paid for your drink and didn’t cause a scene, so the nineteen-year-old Bucky was nursing a bottle of the cheapest beer they had as he waited for Steve’s turn on the small stage. His friend had been talking about this show with increasing excitement and anxiety every single day since his new barbershop quartet had booked the gig._

_Bucky had been surprised when Steve first told him about the quartet. He had never heard Steve sing, not even in the shower. He’d always just assumed that his friend didn’t have much of a voice, or that he was too self-conscious to sing in front of other people. Apparently neither of those things was true._

_Bucky could not help smiling as Steve and his quartet trooped out from behind the curtain to take their place on the stage. Steve looked…well, frankly he looked a little ridiculous in the brightly striped red vest and pants that made up the quartet’s dress code, but the effect was also extremely endearing. Bucky watched as Steve’s nervous gaze swept the bar, and he gave his friend a small wave. Steve smiled, looking relieved, as if he hadn’t been sure that Bucky would show up._

_As if Bucky would miss this._

_The group’s first song was an upbeat, popular number. Steve only had a background part with no actual words, but Bucky thought the song had never sounded better. Steve’s eyes kept searching him out, and Bucky gave him an encouraging smile every time. Steve would smile back, and it made something stir in Bucky’s chest, something unfamiliar and yet not because it had been poking at him for months, maybe years._

_And then came Steve’s solo. According to the quartet leader, he would be singing Irvin Berlin’s_ Always _. As Steve stepped to the front and cleared his throat, Bucky suddenly felt a swoop of nervousness. He knew how important this was to his friend, and if Steve thought he didn’t do well, he would be so disappointed._

_Bucky needn’t have worried. Steve’s voice was beautiful, surprisingly deep and rich for someone whose lungs seemed to have made it their personal mission to make his life miserable. The notes were like honey in the air, sweetening everything they touched. His face was beautiful too, lit up in a way that Bucky had never seen it before._

_Steve’s eyes found Bucky’s again, and they were bright with passion and vitality and when he smiled Bucky felt like the air had been sucked from his lungs. The stirring in his chest turned into a more insistent throbbing, demanding to be noticed. His heart dropped and his stomach lurched as he finally realized what it was._

Oh, shit, _he thought, his eyes dropping to the table and a flush of heat sweeping through his entire body._ Oh shit shit _shit._

_This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all._

You’re a goddamn idiot, Barnes, _he told himself sternly._ You could have any dame in Brooklyn, but you go and fall for Steve? He’s your best friend. Your best friend who’s never shown the slightest interest in a fella.

 _But his heart did not seem to give a rat’s ass what his head was telling it. His heart did not seem to care that the man it had chosen would never love him back. His heart was too busy thinking about Steve, about his smile, his spirit, his terrible jokes, his comforting smell, the way he laughed with his entire body, the look he reserved specially for Bucky, his goddamn life-ruining heart-stealing gorgeous_ voice _._

“Days may not be fair always  
That's when I’ll be there always…”

_Bucky groaned softly to himself. Why did Steve have to be so damned perfect? He had been stealing Bucky’s heart piece by piece for years, and Bucky had been too oblivious to notice until it was too late._

“Not for just an hour  
Not for just a day  
Not for just a year  
But always.”

_Steve’s words felt prophetic. Bucky knew this feeling wasn’t going away any time soon. He was in love with his best friend. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it._

Scream after scream tears its way from the Soldier’s throat as the memories of Steve ricochet around his head. They keep coming, and the Soldier welcomes them now, treasures each piece of Steve that he gets back. But each moment that returns brings with it a jab of horror, because he knows the ending of this story. He was the ending.

_Oh god oh god oh god what have I done_

*****

_“Buck…?”_

_“Go to sleep, Steve.”_

_“Please?”_

_“You can’t be serious.”_

_“Come on, Buck. It’ll be cozy.”_

_“Steve, you can barely fit in that bedroll yourself. If you think I’m gonna fit in there with you, Morita needs to check your head.”_

_The two men were sharing a tent in the Alps. The idea was for them to get some rest before their big mission to capture Zola the next day, but Steve seemed to be having trouble with that. He was propped on his elbow and facing Bucky, who was staring resolutely at the fabric ceiling._

_“But it’s cold,” Steve whined._

_“Don’t even try that with me, Rogers. I know full well that serum you went and got yourself injected with keeps you plenty warm.”_

_“You keep me warmer.”_

_Bucky sighed and rolled over to face Steve. Mistake. He’d placed himself in the direct line of influence for Steve’s earnest puppy look._

_Bucky rolled his eyes and undid the zipper on his own bedroll. Steve’s face lit up and he scooted closer, until his back was pressed to Bucky’s chest. Bucky’s entire body warmed instantly, but it wasn’t because the serum had turned his friend into a human space heater._

_Bucky wondered if Steve would ever understand the effect he had on him, what these supposedly casual touches did to his heart._

_Of course he wouldn’t. Steve was in love with Peggy Carter, the beautiful dame who was everything that Bucky wasn’t. He was just the best friend, the one who would do anything for Steve but could never be more. It would have to be enough._

_“You’re too big to be the little spoon anymore,” Bucky informed him, even as he was wrapping his arms around Steve to pull him closer._

_“Old habits die hard.”_

_“Yeah, that and you like to be cuddled.”_

_“You know me far too well, Sergeant Barnes.”_

_“You love me for it.”_

_The words slipped out before Bucky could think about them, and his stomach clenched. But Steve stayed relaxed in his arms._

_“Yeah, I do.”_

After that, the memories of Steve stop, replaced by ice and snow and unimaginable pain. It is torture and electricity and cold metal. It is cruel faces and snarled commands and being brutally picked apart piece by piece, but it is resistance too. Oh yes, there is resistance. Bucky Barnes had a strong spirit. But every person has a breaking point.

_Bucky had long ago lost track of how many days he had spent in his current hellhole. They were all the same: freezing metal cells so small that he couldn’t even lie down in them, scant respite from his torturous days._

_Bucky was utterly exhausted and mildly feverish. His dark hair clung to his face and the metal arm hung useless at his side. The scientists had deactivated it until they could be sure that he would never use it against them. Bucky was determined to make sure that they would never be safe reactivating it._

_Bucky let his aching head rest against the frigid metal wall of the cell. His eyes were the only parts of him that didn’t hurt, and he closed them against the sight of his broken body and miserable surroundings._

_“Come on, Steve,” he murmured like a prayer. “I know you’re looking for me. Please hurry, pal. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”_

_He fell into a fevered haze of sleep with Steve’s name on his lips. He was woken minutes or hours later when his cell was flooded with blinding light from the bulbs in the ceiling._

“Your endurance has been most impressive.” _The cold voice rang from the speaker in a corner of his cell. It was a voice that Bucky had come to associate with pain._ “But you must come to realize that your resistance is meaningless.”

_Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and tried to cover his ears, but he only had one working hand. An electric shock ran through the walls and he jerked, sitting up straighter._

“You are nothing. There is no you. You are a tool to be used.”

_A month ago, Bucky would have thrown back a sarcastic retort or maybe a rude gesture or two. Now though, he is too tired and battered and numb to do anything but sit there, waiting for whatever new torture was in store for him._

“What are you?”

_Bucky knew what the voice was looking for, but he did not respond. Steve was coming for him, and Bucky was determined to still be a person when he got here._

_Another shock rippled through him, and he clenched his teeth._

“What are you?”

_Bucky closed his eyes once more._

Please, Steve, _he thought desperately._ Please find me again.

_A cruel laugh echoed through the cell, and Bucky realized that me must have said the words aloud._

“Your captain is not coming for you,” _the voice informed him._ “Even if he thought you were worth the effort, which he surely did not, he could not save you. Steven Rogers is dead.”

_“You’re lying,” Bucky said immediately, his voice dull but his certainty absolute. Steve could not be dead. The world would have stopped spinning._

_Instead of an answering voice, a grainy image was projected on the wall in front of him. He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, before realizing that it was the front page of the_ New York Times. _On it was a picture of Steve in his Captain America uniform, and Bucky’s breath caught in his chest. He had forgotten just how beautiful Steve was. But then he managed to tear his eyes away from the picture to read the headline above it._

**_CAPTAIN AMERICA DIES A HERO: A NATION MOURNS_ **

_And beneath the picture of Steve was a smaller one that showed the president, his head bowed solemnly as he addressed the crowd before him, many of whom were draped in flags or sporting replicas of Steve’s shield, and most of whom were in tears._

_“No,” Bucky said at once, shaking his head so hard that his ears rang. “No, it’s not true. It’s fake. It’s-”_

_“Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?_ _”_

_Every muscle in Bucky’s body froze as Steve’s voice came through the speakers._

_“Steve?” he whispered, feeling his eyes fill with involuntary tears. He missed that voice so much._

_But then Jim Morita’s voice answered Steve’s, followed quickly by Peggy Carter’s, and Bucky realized that he was listening to a recording._

_“Peggy! Schmidt's dead!”_

_Bucky closed his eyes, letting the sound of Steve’s voice wash over him as he talked to Carter. Steve sounded fine. A little nervous maybe, but that had to be the adrenaline of finally killing his old enemy. That had to be it._

_“I’ve gotta put her in the water.”_

_Bucky’s eyes snapped back open. He may not have understood completely what was going on, but he knew that Steve was on a plane, and now it sounded like he wanted to deliberately crash it._

_“No!” he shouted, leaping to his feet. His legs almost crumpled beneath him, but he barely noticed. He just stared up at the speaker, his heart frozen in his chest._

_Peggy was also pleading with Steve._

_“Please, don't do this. We have time. We can work it out.”_

_“Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die. Peggy…this is my choice.”_

_Bucky couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move as he listened to Steve and Carter pretend that the world was not coming to an end._

_“We’ll have the band play something slow. I'd hate to step on your-”_

_Bucky collapsed as empty static burst through the speakers. He curled into a ball, hand fisted in his hair and breath coming in ragged gasps._

No no no no no

_Steve could not be dead. He could not be dead, because then Bucky would have nothing, would be nothing. Steve could not be dead, but Bucky had just heard him die. Peggy’s quiet sobs echoed through the cell, and Bucky could not deny it longer, because Peggy Carter did not cry. Only one thing could possibly make her._

“He killed himself,” _the cruel voice said mercilessly once the recording had ended._ “Do you think he did it because he thought you were dead?”

_“Shut up!” Bucky screamed, standing again and clawing at the speaker. It was too high for him to reach._

“Your captain is dead. He will be buried forever in an arctic wasteland. You are alone.”

_The projection of the newspaper with Steve’s picture blinked out of sight, and Bucky sank back to the floor. Sobs heaved their way out of his chest, his grief suffocating him, consuming him. Hopeless despair choked him, and he wished they would just let him die._

“What are you?”

_Broken. He had nothing left. Steve was everything, and Steve was gone._

“What are you?”

_“I am nothing.”_

“Correct.”

The Soldier is past screaming now. He can barely even breathe. The tide of memories is tinged with crimson now, the blood of his targets rising up and threatening to drown him. Mission after mission flashes before him, slamming into place in his memory. Screams and cries echo through his ears in an agonized cacophony.

But none of it matters, because the Soldier knows what is coming. Because the one memory he started with is the one that will destroy him.

The flood of memories begins to slow at last as they near the present, and then Steve’s face is back, seen dimly from across a roof as a shield is thrown back and forth. Then it is daylight, and Steve is staring at him, shock on his face and Bucky’s name on his lips.

And then…and then…

_Oh god, no please, no no no_

It is Bucky who screams this time as the reality of what he has done hits him. He feels Steve’s neck snapping under his hands and sees Steve’s broken body lying on the riverbank. And it breaks him.

“No!” he cries, and his mouth is full of blood because the Soldier’s handlers did not bother to give him a bite guard. But the pain in his mouth is a sweet caress compared to the agony in his heart.

Their job done, the plates retract from his face, and he is left staring up at the woman, who is smiling in vindictive satisfaction.

“Tell me, Sergeant Barnes,” she says, leaning over him. “How does it feel?”

Bucky spits a mouthful of blood in her face and she recoils. Fury overtakes her features as she wipes away the blood, and she takes a handgun from her belt.

“I must say, I thought the procedure alone might kill you,” she tells Bucky as she presses the gun to his temple. “But I’m glad it didn’t. I’m going to enjoy painting this chair with those weak little brains of yours.”

Bucky glowers at her, and rage rises within him to join his storm of impossible grief. He will be glad to die, and soon, but it will not be at her hand. She is part of the organization that ordered Steve’s death, and her life cannot be allowed to continue.

Her finger tightens on the trigger, but Bucky is still the Winter Soldier too, and he wrenches free of his bonds and out of the bullet’s path. The woman barely has time to look surprised before he is on his feet and lunging at her, yanking the gun from her hand with ease.

“It feels like hell,” Bucky tells her as he turns the weapon back on its owner. “Which is where you’re going.”

He pulls the trigger and she drops to the ground, a neat hole in her forehead. It is too painless a death, but it will have to do.

The other people in the room are scrambling now, trying to preserve their pitiful lives. But they are Hydra, and Hydra killed Steve. Bucky picks them off with ruthless efficiency.

He is left standing in the middle of the vault, surrounded by the dead. Suddenly staying upright is an impossible challenge, and he sinks to his knees. The tears that he had put off with his murderous rampage finally catch up to him and he sobs, shoulders shaking and head bowed with the weight of what he has lost.

The pain is unbearable now, and Bucky is sorely tempted by the gun in his hand. He longs for a bullet the way the Soldier had longed for the Chair. But he cannot have it yet. He does not deserve it. Not while any part of the organization that turned him into a weapon and used him to kill the man he loved still exists.

He has one last mission then. Razing Hydra to the ground.

It is only this resolve that gives Bucky the strength to push himself from the floor. He pauses at the door of the vault as he is about to leave. He looks back at the Chair, sitting in the middle of the room with the body of the dead technician slumped against the side. Bucky now remembers every single moment he spent in the horrific contraption, and loathing surges within him. He lunges at the Chair and starts tearing it apart with his bare hands, yanking and swinging and punching until it is little more than a sparking pile of scrap.

Chest heaving and barely holding himself together, Bucky stalks out of the vault. He has a mission that he will not leave incomplete.

*****

The following month is a torturous haze for Bucky. He storms his way around the globe, seeking out any trace of Hydra and destroying it utterly. He finds secret bases, weapons manufacturing plants, research facilities; they all go up in flames. He even tracks down Hydra officials who have gone on the run, ending their lives just when they think they are safe. Slowly but surely, he is completing his mission.

But it does not help. It does not ease the burden that sits like a crushing weight in his otherwise empty chest. It does not change the fact that Steve is dead, that Bucky killed him. It does not make him yearn for his own death any less.

Though he remembers everything now, his brain is still a mess. He thinks he remembers too much, things that never happened. His nights are haunted by visions of Steve, broken and bleeding and dying at Bucky’s hands. Sometimes his days are haunted by these visions too. But it doesn’t matter that he is going insane. It will not stop him from completing his mission.

Eventually, Bucky finds his way to the facility in which he was first conditioned. It brings back the memories that he had tried so hard not to examine too closely, and they hit him with a vengeance. He remembers the agony of the years he spent here, remembers what it was like to be carved into a weapon.

The facility is empty and looks like it was abandoned years ago. But even though it is no longer in use, it will not escape destruction.

Even though every new room he sees is like getting punched in the gut with a new horrific memory, he goes through all of them, hunting for something he desperately hopes is still here. And after searching two whole floors of the facility, he finally finds an ancient and dusty storage room with a box labeled PROJECT WINTER SOLDIER: PERSONAL EFFECTS.

The box contains very little, just a sealed plastic bag with the torn and bloody clothes that Bucky had been wearing the day he fell from the train, the few pieces of gear he’d had with him, and a set of dog tags on a standard-issue metal chain.

Bucky’s heart lurches and he snatches up the dog tags, letting the box and the rest of its contents fall to the floor. He runs his fingers over the tarnished metal, tracing the raised letters pressed into them.

 **JAMES B BARNES**  
            **12032557   T42  43                        B**  
**STEVEN ROGERS**  
**1404 ALAMEDA AVE                   NP**  
**BROOKLYN, NY**

 **STEVEN G ROGERS**  
            **O-121776   T42  43                       O**  
**JAMES BARNES**  
**HOWLING COMMANDOS                 C**  
**US ARMY**

_“You know, I never thought I’d actually get a set of these things.”_

_Bucky looked up from the map he was studying and over at Steve, who was sitting beside him and contemplating the two little metal tags in his hand. Colonel Phillips had given them to him that morning, with some grudging remark about how if he was going to be a proper member of the military, he would need them. They weren’t Steve’s first set of tags, but they were the first to have his new rank on them, the mark of his new responsibility. They were the ones that meant it was all real._

_Bucky didn’t say what he was thinking, which was that he never thought Steve would get them either. Well, more like hoped. But then again, he never thought that Steve would be dumb enough to sign up to be a lab rat for some harebrained experiment that would turn him into a goddamn superhero either, so that showed how much he knew._

_“Heavy, aren’t they?” he asked, his hand going to his chest to feel for his own tags. He still clearly remembered the moment they had been issued, remembered how they had made the weight of what he was doing really sink in for the first time._

_“Yeah, they are,” Steve agreed thoughtfully._

_“You regret anything?” Bucky tried not to let on how much the answer mattered to him. Because even though he thought Steve had been perfect the way he was and was less than thrilled about him risking his life to change himself, he could put those feelings aside if it had made Steve happier. But if his friend regretted anything, Bucky would…well, he didn’t know what he would do. Maybe slug Phillips in the jaw for a start._

_“It’s a change,” Steve said, glancing over at Bucky with a wry smirk. “But I think it’s a good change, Buck, I really do. And if it means that I get to stick with you, then it was all worth it just for that.”_

_Bucky shook his head. He wished Steve would stop saying crap like that. It made being in love with him that much more painful._

_“The way you’re fondling those dog tags, I think you signed up just for them,” he said, deliberately shifting tracks in an attempt to make his heart stop trying to tie itself into knots._

_Steve chuckled and let the tags slip from his fingers to clink back into place on his chest._

_“I never could get anything past you,” he joked._

_Bucky rolled his eyes._

_“Not for lack of trying,” he muttered. “Who’d you list as your next of kin?”_

_Steve gave him an incredulous look, like it was the stupidest question in the world._

_“You,” he said. “Who else? I mean, I realize they’ll have a hard time finding you to notify you if something happens to me, but-”_

_“But that won’t be a problem,” Bucky interrupted. “Because if something happens to you, I’ll be right there with you.”_

_There was an edge of sadness to Steve’s smile, but it still warmed Bucky’s heart, like always. Then Steve pulled his necklace off and detached one of the tags from it. He held out his hand to Bucky, who could only hand over his own necklace mutely and watch as Steve threaded his tag onto it. They both knew that it was completely against regulations, but Bucky sure as hell didn’t care, and apparently Steve didn’t either._

_So when Steve handed the necklace back, Bucky removed his extra tag and pressed it into his friend’s palm before slipping the chain around his neck. Steve’s name hung over his heart like a talisman, like a promise. He was overwhelmed by a sense of rightness and finality as he watched Steve string Bucky’s tag onto his own chain._

_Steve looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes, and his expression was unreadable._

_“Till the end of the line?” he asked softly._

_Bucky had to swallow past the thickness in his throat before he answered._

_“Till the end of the line, pal.”_

Tears burn Bucky’s eyes as he stares at the tags, at the reminder of promises broken and love lost. He tries to blink them back – he does not have time for them – but one escapes to splash across Steve’s name. Bucky clenches his hand around the tags until they bite into his palm, and then he strings them back around his neck. They feel so much heavier now than they ever had during the war, but he is glad to have them back. They never belonged in this pit.

When the facility is nothing more than a pile of smoldering ash and twisted metal, Bucky knows that it is time. If there are some remnants of Hydra left, it will have to be up to someone else to eradicate them, because Bucky just _can’t_. Even his vengeance is exhausted now, and he has reached the end of his line.

He does not want to die in some god-forsaken place in Russia though, so he goes back to Brooklyn for the first time since the war. His heart aches over how much it has changed. It holds nothing of the two boys who grew up in its streets.

Well, not quite nothing. When Bucky looks for their old apartment building, he finds that his and Steve’s old unit has been preserved as a historical landmark. There is even a little metal plaque fastened to the flimsy door.

It apparently has visiting hours, but it is almost midnight and Bucky is well outside of them. He picks the lock on the door and pushes his way into the tiny apartment, and tears start falling down his face before he can even give a thought to trying to stop them. Everything is exactly the same as he left it all those years ago, right down to the ancient kitchen table with a burn mark shaped like an overweight duck that he and Steve had laughed about.

Some of Steve’s sketches hang on the walls, and Bucky runs his fingers over one of him, his eyes bright with life and his mouth quirked in a smile. He remembers the day Steve drew it, remembers how his friend just kept telling awful jokes so that Bucky would stay smiling long enough to get it down properly. It is tangible proof that the life he had with Steve was real and that he will never get it back.

Bucky pulls out his gun and just holds it for a moment, its cool weight comforting in his hand. He is so close, and the relief is already settling in his bones. He can almost feel the blessed silence in his head.

Bucky looks around the room, trying to decide where he wants to do it. Eventually he just settles for kneeling on the floor. He hopes that his blood will not stain the old wood. He does not want to tarnish this place, this little preserved bubble of a happier time.

He wonders what it will be like. Even before the war, he was never sure how much he believed in God. He knows that Steve did though. He finds himself hoping that Steve was right. Steve deserves heaven, and if that means that Bucky is going to hell, then so be it. At least he sent a few bad guys ahead of him.

Unwilling to put the end off any longer, Bucky tilts his head up and presses his gun to the underside of his chin. He could have put it in his mouth, but he does not want metal to be the last thing he tastes. He does not feel hesitation or uncertainty. Even if he had any semblance of a will to live, he knows without a doubt that the world will be a better place without him in it. He has done enough harm in his life. It is time to do the right thing in his death.

He looks at another one of Steve’s sketches. It is one of the only self-portraits that he ever did, and it shows him and Bucky on the fire escape outside their window, staring up at the few stars that managed to shine through the light of the city.

Bucky remembers the night. It was one of the many times he had come so close to telling Steve how he felt, to blurting out how much he loved the little blonde punk laying beside him. But just like every other time, he’d stopped himself, terrified of losing Steve.

Well, now he has lost Steve, and there’s no harm in saying it. If there’s any chance that Steve can hear him from wherever he is, he has to say it.

“I love you, Stevie,” he murmurs, his eyes still on the sketch. “And I’m sorry.”

His finger tightens on the trigger, and a loud bang reverberates through the apartment.

“NO!”

The voice is wild and panicked and beautifully, blissfully familiar. Bucky closes his eyes and laughs, because finally his shattered psyche is giving him a gift instead of torturing him. He relaxes his grip on the gun that he has not yet fired and turns to the open doorway, where Steve is standing, looking breathless and terrified.

It is not the first time that Bucky has hallucinated Steve since regaining his memories, but it is the first time that the Steve of his vision is whole and healthy. Perhaps it is pointless, but Bucky wants what time he can get with him.

“Heya, Steve,” he says, willing to put off his trip to hell for just a little longer.

“Bucky, please,” says Steve’s likeness, his hands outstretched though he is still across the room. “Please, just – just put the gun down.”

He sounds scared, and Bucky does not want him to be scared, even if it just an imagined version of him. He lets the gun drop to his side, though he does not let go of it. Steve rushes forward, closing the distance between them and dropping to his knees in front of Bucky with a surprisingly real thump.

“Oh, Buck,” he says, and there are tears in his eyes as he surveys Bucky, taking in every inch of his ragged appearance.

Bucky just stares at him, drinking in every detail of his perfectly recreated face.

“I knew there had to be some upsides to going crazy,” Bucky tells him.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, his eyes dropping warily to the gun that Bucky is still clutching. He looks like he wants to grab it, but is afraid of what might happen if he tries.

Bucky does not answer, but he transfers the gun to his metal hand so that he can reach the human one across the foot of space that is separating him from the vision. Steve holds perfectly still, his eyes locked on Bucky’s face. It is with great hesitation that Bucky touches his fingers to Steve’s cheek, because he is afraid that the contact will make the hallucination fall apart. His brain is being kind to him though, and Steve remains warm and solid. Bucky cups Steve’s face tenderly in his palm and sighs softly.

“I miss you,” he informs his vision, because as wonderful as this is, it will never be more than a weak echo of what could have been.

“I missed you too, Buck,” Steve says, his lips stretched into that smile he wears when he’s happy and sad at the same time. He covers Bucky’s hand with his own. “But I’m here now, okay? And this time I swear I’m not going anywhere. So how about you give me the gun and let me take care of you.”

Steve’s voice is so gentle and persuasive that Bucky has almost relinquished the weapon before he comes back to his senses. He frowns. He hadn’t banked on this, on his survival instincts being so strong that they tried to trick him into wanting to live.

It won’t work. It can’t work, because Steve is still dead and this hallucination will fade and Bucky does not want to be alive when it does.

But he does not want to spend the time he has left arguing. He wants to spend it as close to Steve as he can. So he just scoots forward, and because this figment of his imagination knows exactly what he wants, he is soon resting against Steve’s torso, Steve’s arms wrapped in a protective circle around his body. It is the best Bucky has felt in seventy years, and he lets out a blissful sigh as he closes his eyes and lets his head rest on Steve’s shoulder.

“Do you remember the first time I came to one of your performances?” he asks after a moment, eyes still closed.

“Of course,” Steve answers. His voice sounds strange, and Bucky worries that the illusion is already beginning to fall apart. “Of course I remember, Bucky.”

“That was when I realized I was in love with you.” Bucky feels Steve’s breath hitch in his chest, but he does not mind. He need not fear this Steve’s rejection. “Do you think…” and this time he is afraid, because he knows that he does not deserve what he is about to ask for, and his mind might punish him for it by taking Steve away. “Do you think you could sing it again? For me this time?”

There is a pause, and Bucky holds his breath, afraid that Steve will vanish and leave him cold and empty again.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve says again, his voice soft as a whisper. “It was only ever for you.”

He clears his throat and takes a deep breath.

“ _I'll be loving you, always  
With a love that's true, always.”_

Tears begin to leak from Bucky’s closed eyes, and he feels Steve’s hand on his face, tenderly wiping them away. Steve’s hand moves to his hair, stroking it gently even as he continues to sing.

_“When the things you've planned_  
_Need a helping hand_  
_I will understand_  
_Always, always._

_Days may not be fair, always  
That's when I'll be there, always_

_Not for just an hour_  
_Not for just a day_  
_Not for just a year_  
_But always.”_

Steve’s body is shaking now, and Bucky feels warm tears splash into his hair. He uses his human hand to bring Steve’s palm to his lips so that he can kiss it. Steve’s voice trembles, but it is no less beautiful.

_“Dreams will all come true_  
_Growing old with you_  
_And time will fly_  
_Caring each day more_  
_Than the day before_  
_Till spring rolls by_  
_Then when the springtime has gone_  
_Then will my love linger on_  
_Always.”_

Steve’s head drops onto Bucky’s shoulder and he starts sobbing in earnest now that he has finished singing. Bucky wishes that Steve weren’t sad. Maybe this is his subconscious’ way of punishing him for being greedy.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve chokes, his cheek pressed to the side of Bucky’s neck. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Bucky frowns. What could Steve feel sorry for?

“I let you fall, and I just left you. They came for you and they hurt you and I wasn’t there for you. I just _abandoned_ you-”

Bucky pulls away, because now he is sure that he is being punished. The idea that _Steve_ could feel guilty, after what Bucky had done…

“Stop,” he pleads, turning to face Steve. “You can’t – I don’t…I never blamed you, Steve. _Never_. But I – I…”

He buries his head in his hands, shoulders shaking. He’s sees now how wrong he was about his hallucination being a gift. Seeing Steve again, getting to spend time with him as if he were real, and knowing what he had done…maybe he had pulled the trigger already and this was his first punishment in hell.

He feels Steve’s hand on his shoulder and he recoils.

“Don’t!” he cries. “I _killed_ you, Steve! You were always worth a hundred of me, and I snapped your neck with my bare hands.”

He looks down at said hands, loathing surging through him at the sight of the metal one, the one given to him by the people who made him a weapon. He is still holding the gun though, and he knows that the time has well and truly come for him to use it.

He does not look up for a last glimpse of Steve’s face, does not deserve it. He just raises the gun to his temple and pulls the trigger before anything else can delay him.

There is a deafening bang, but the impact hits Bucky’s arm and chest, not his head. He slams into the ground, ears ringing as the gun clatters out of his hand. His lungs feel flat and empty, and there is a weight on his chest, heavy and warm. He cannot move or breathe, can do nothing but stare blankly up at the ceiling as he waits for this to start making sense.

“Oh god, no. Please no. Bucky!”

Steve is still there, sitting up and reaching frantically for Bucky’s face. He presses his fingers to the side of Bucky’s head, where he can feel the wet burning of the bullet’s track over the surface of his skin.

Bucky finally blinks, looking up at Steve, bewildered.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and relief breaks over Steve’s face.

“Thank god,” he says fervently, pulling Bucky upright and into his arms. “For a second I thought I’d been too slow.”

“But you’re not real,” Bucky protests numbly. “You can’t be real. I killed you. How could you stop me if you’re not real?”

Steve stiffens and pulls just far enough away from Bucky to see his face.

“Jesus,” he whispers after a moment, looking horrified. “You think…this whole time… _Jesus_.”

He takes Bucky’s hands and places them on his chest, holding them over his heart, which is beating steadily, albeit quickly.

“I’m real, Bucky,” he says urgently. “I’m alive. You broke my neck, but it didn’t completely sever my spinal cord. I was in bad shape for a while, really bad, but I _pulled through_. I made it. You didn’t kill me. I’m really here.”

Steve is practically babbling now, and Bucky is so desperate to believe him, but he just can’t. Dreams like this don’t come true in his nightmare of a life.

He starts to shake his head, but then Steve is leaning forward and pressing his lips to Bucky’s.

The kiss is like nothing Bucky could have imagined, and he had imagined a lot over the years. It sets him on fire, but for the first time the burning isn’t painful, it is exquisite. Steve’s lips move against his, tender and urgent at the same time, searching. His warm and familiar scent fills Bucky’s nose as their breath mingles and his fingers tangle in Bucky’s hair. Steve pulls him closer, his mouth open and insistent. Bucky feels alive for the first time in seventy years as he kisses back with everything he has, his broken pieces coming together under Steve’s touch.

No, Bucky could not have imagined this. Could not be imagining this.

He gasps as he realizes what this means. They break apart, and Steve rests his forehead against Bucky’s and stares into his eyes. Bucky is crying again, but he does not care.

“Steve?” he asks in a whisper, and Steve’s face breaks into a smile.

“Yeah,” he says, planting another quick kiss on Bucky’s lips. “Yeah, it’s me, Buck.”

And then they are in each other’s arms, and Bucky is shaking against Steve’s chest, face buried in his neck, and Steve is rubbing his back and murmuring soothingly in his ear between tender kisses to his temple. Bucky is laughing through his sobs because he can barely believe how good it feels, how easily the horror of his life has brightened. But then, Steve always had been able to make his nightmares go away.

Eventually Bucky calms down enough to pull back so that he can see Steve’s face again. He brushes his hand along Steve’s cheek, marveling at the fact that he can. Steve smiles encouragingly at him, so Bucky leaves his hand there, reveling in the solid, living warmth.

“How?” he asks, because now that he has accepted that Steve is real, he is more confused than when he thought he was hallucinating.

Steve sighs and looks down.

“I woke up in the hospital a week after…after the fight,” he says, and Bucky knows what he is avoiding saying. “Everyone said that you’d disappeared, and some people thought that you’d gone down with the helicarriers, but I remembered the riverbank. I remembered seeing _you_ buried in there, under everything they’d done to you. I knew I had to find you. I was stuck in the hospital for another two weeks though, and I felt so useless…”

Bucky slides his hand under Steve’s chin and tilts his face up gently.

“You are not allowed to blame yourself,” he says firmly, holding Steve’s gaze. “For any of it, you understand?”

Steve bites his lip but nods. Bucky knows he’s still going to feel guilty, but there’s not much he can do about it at the moment. He lets go of Steve’s chin so that he can continue the story.

“By the time I was released from the hospital, the trail of destruction of all things Hydra made it pretty clear that you were still out there and that you remembered at least something. I knew that I had to find you, but I didn’t know where to start. I could tell where you’d been, but not where you were going. So I came to New York to talk to a friend of mine, Tony Stark.”

“Howard’s son,” Bucky says, because of course he looked into the Avengers. The Black Widow had released all of SHIELD’s files online, and Bucky had pored over every single one that pertained to Steve.

Steve nods.

“He can be a bit much to deal with, but he’s a good man. He also has the kind of resources that make finding someone easier.” Steve pauses and looks around at their old apartment. “I thought there was a chance you would come back here at some point, so I asked Tony to set up a monitoring system just in case. It went off tonight, and I got here as fast as I could. And when I saw you…”

He falters, and his eyes are haunted with the knowledge that he was almost too late. Bucky takes his hand and squeezes it.

“I thought I was gonna lose you again,” Steve tells him. “I thought…God, I was planning on flying to Moscow in the morning. If I hadn’t been here…Bucky, please tell me that you were only trying to kill yourself because you thought I was dead. Please tell me you’re not still thinking about…”

His eyes dart to the gun that is now lying under one of the kitchen chairs. He shudders, and Bucky feels a pang of guilt for the distress that he caused. He reaches up and gently smooths the frown lines from Steve’s forehead with his thumb.

“I ain’t missing a second I’ve got left with you,” he promises. “You’re stuck with me, punk.”

Steve smiles, and though it is still tinged with sadness and regret, it is radiant.

“You used to call me that all the time,” he says softly. “How much do you remember?”

“I remember that it’s true,” Bucky tells him with a smirk. “I also remember that you punched a kid in the family jewels for me the day we met.”

Steve actually laughs at that, and the sound does wonders to lift the haze of darkness that still lingers in Bucky’s heart. Some of it returns though when he realizes that he owes Steve an explanation.

“After…after my last mission, Hydra was done with me,” he says. “They were going to kill me no matter what, but that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted me to suffer before they put me down. I guess they knew the best way to do that was to give me back all of my memories, to make me feel what I had done. So they did. It didn’t end well for anyone.”

Bucky bows his head, remembering the nightmare of that bloodstained vault.

“I remember everything, Steve,” he says after a moment. “From before and after. I remember everything they made me do, every life they made me take.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. It doesn’t help much.”

Steve looks pained, but he says nothing else. He just reaches out to brush his fingers along Bucky’s cheek and into his lank hair, tucking it behind his ear. He leaves his hand on the side of Bucky’s neck, steady and warm. It feels so good, better than Bucky deserves, and there is something he needs to know.

“Did you mean it?” he asks.

“Mean what?”

“The song. When you said it had only ever been for me.”

Understanding dawns on Steve’s face, and then he actually looks a little sheepish.

“Of course I meant it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d been in love with you since…jeez, I can’t even remember now. A stupidly long time. Why do you think I made you come to the performance? I was trying to get you to notice me as something more. If I’d known that it _worked_ …”

He just shakes his head again.

“We’re both idiots,” Bucky supplies thoughtfully. Steve laughs again.

“Can’t argue with that.”

“We can make up for lost time though.”

He stands, pulling Steve with him. He kisses Steve again, because he can, because Steve is alive and here and _his_.

And in that moment, standing in the apartment in which they had lived and laughed and fallen in love, it does not feel like they’ve lost any time at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Here is the link to the complete prompt: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19458.html?thread=46054658#t46054658
> 
> The writing of this story involved listening to Frank Sinatra singing _Always_ for over an hour, drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate, and banging my head against the keyboard as I wondered how I let two fictional people take over my life.  
>  Just as a side note: the dog tags that I describe aren't quite historically accurate. By the time Steve and Bucky would have been in the war together, the army had switched to the simpler version that did not have next of kin listed. Since they only missed it by a few months though and I found the idea of them listing each other as their next of kin to be adorable and heartbreaking, I used it.
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought of this story. Feel free to come wallow around in stucky feels with me on [tumblr](http://drmcbones.tumblr.com/)


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